>> this is a fox news alert. >> you are looking at the white house where president obama will tell the american people what his administration will try to accomplish after the massacre at sandy hook in connecticut.

from new york, could wednesday, everyone. we are told this is not going to be a policy announcement but more of a laying out of the process for what is next. it will not get past anyone that the event is taking place in the james braddy briefing room. as we await the announcement, our correspondent is at the white house with more. steve, what is the expectation? >> the president will appear in the briefing room along with vice president joe biden, a longtime gun control advocates. the president says that he supports gun control but has not taken any firm action. we will find out today what he has in mind. we don't expect any big policy changes right off the bat, but expect he will gather ideas from his cabinet secretaries, and justice, and health and human services, education, anything to

prevent mass shootings that happened in connecticut happening in the future. one idea is possibly to ban assault weapons. there was a ban that expired in 2004. he could try to push to reinstate that. he b bate hege ngge ng ideas ad possibly drawing up legislation in the future. we will find out exactly what he has in mind, in a few minutes. >> here's the president. >> good morning, everybody. dayshas now been five since the heartbreaking tragedy in newtown, connecticut. three days since we gathered as a nation to pray for the victims. today a few more of the 20 small children and the six educators will be laid to rest. we may never know all the reasons this tragedy happened. we do know that every day since then, more americans ever died

of gun violence. we know that such violence has terrible consequences for our society. if there's even one of thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try and. over these past five days, the discussion has re-emerged as to what we might do not only to deter mass shootings in the future but to reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every day. and it is encouraging that people of all different backgrounds and beliefs and political persuasions have been willing to challenge old assumptions and to change longstanding positions. that conversation pastor continued. but this time the words need to lead to action. we know this is a complex issue that stirs the deeply held passions and political divides. as i said sunday, there's no law or set of laws that can prevent

every senseless acts of violence in our society. we will need to work on making access to mental health care at least limited access to guns. we will need to look at a culture that often glorifies guns and violence. any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts. the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. the fact that we cannot prevent every act of violence does not mean we cannot steadily reduce the violence and prevent the very worst violence. that's why i have asked the vice president to lead an effort that includes members of my cabinets and outside organizations to come up with a set of concrete proposals no later than january, proposals that i then intend to

push without delay. this is not some washington commission, not something where folks will study the issue six months and publish a report that gets read and then pushed aside. this is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now. i asked joe to lead this effort in part because he wrote the 1994 crime bill than help law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in this country. that plant -- that bill also included the assault weapons banned but that was publicly supported at the time by former presidents including ronald reagan. the good news is there's already a growing consensus for us to build from. the majority of americans support banning the sale of military-style assault weapons. a majority of americans support banning the sale of high capacity ammunition clips.

a majority of americans support laws requiring background checks before all gun purchases so that criminals cannot take advantage of legal loopholes to purchase a gun from somebody who will not take the responsibility of doing a background check at all. i urge the new congress to hold a vote on these measures next year in a timely manner. congress has not confirmed a director of the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms in six years. the agency that worked most closely with state and local law enforcement to keep illegal guns out of band of criminals. i suggest they make this a priority early in the year. look, like the majority of americans, i believe the second amendment to the guarantees an individual right to bear arms. this country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that has been handed down from generation to generation. obviously, across the country there are regional differences,

differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas. the fact is, the vast majority of gun owners in america are responsible. they purchase guns illegally and they use them safely. whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection, or protection. but i am also betting that the majority, the vast majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say we should able to keep an irresponsible lawbreaking few from purchasing a weapon of war. i'm willing to bet they don't think using and using common sense are not compatible ideas. that's an unbalanced man should not able to get his hands on a military-style assault weapons so easily. that in this age of technology we should be able to check someone's criminal records before he or she can check out

at a gun show. that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people there would be fewer and tragedies like the one in newtown. or any of the lesser known tragedies in small towns and big cities all across america every day. since friday morning, a police officer was gunned down in memphis leading four children without their mother. two officers were killed outside a grocery store in topeka. a woman was shot and killed inside the las vegas casino. three people were shot inside an alabama hospital. and four-year-old was caught in a drive-by in missouri and taken off life support yesterday. each one of these americans was a victim of the everyday gun violence that takes the lives of more than tens thousand americans every year. violence that we cannot accept as a routine.

so i will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. we will not prevent them all, but that cannot be an excuse not to try. it will not be easy, but that cannot be an excuse not to try. i am not going to be able to do it by myself. ultimately, if this effort is to succeed, it is going to require the help of the american people. it will acquire all of you. if we're going to change things, it's going to take a wave of americans, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors, law-enforcement, mental-health professionals, and gun owners, standing up and saying enough, on behalf of our children. it will take commitment and compromise and most of all it will take courage. if those of us who are sent here

to serve the public trust can summon even one tiny iota of the courage those teachers and that school principal in newtown summoned on friday, the cooperation and common sense prevails, then i am convinced we can make a sensible, intelligence way to make the united states of america a safer and stronger place for our children to learn and to grow. thank you. now i will let the vice president go on and i will take a few questions. ben? >> thank you, mr. president. i would like to ask about the other serious issues, the fiscal cliff. how low would you changed your position by including social security benefits in the discussion? there seems to be a deepening sense that negotiations are not going very well right now.

can you give us an update? are we likely to go over the cliff? >> first of all, there's no reason why we should. remember what i said during the campaign, i thought it was important for us to reduce our deficits in a balanced and responsible way. i said it was important for us to make sure millionaires and billionaires paid their fair share. i said that we were going to have to make some tough cuts, some tough decisions on the spending side, but what i would not do was to hurt the honorable families only to pay for a tax cut for somebody like me. and what i said was that the ultimate package would involve a balance of spending cuts and tax increases. that is exactly what i have put forward. what i have said is that in order to arrive at a compromise,

i am prepared to do some very tough things, some things that some democrats don't want to see and probably a few republicans want to see either. but the only way we are going to be able to stabilize the economy, make sure that we get a platform for long-term economic growth, that we get our deficits under control and make sure middle-class families are protected, is if we, with something that members of both parties in congress can support. and that is the plan i have put forward. i have gone at least halfway in meeting some of my republican concerns, recognizing that even though we campaigned on these issues, even though the majority of americans agree with me, that we should be raising taxes on the wealthiest few as a means of reducing the deficit, i have

also said i'm willing to identify some spending cuts that makes sense. , frankly, until a couple days ago, if you looked at it, the republicans in the house and the speaker were in a position to say we have gotten a fair deal. the fact that they have not andn it yet it's puzzling is a question you'll have to address to them. i remain optimistic, because if you look at what the speaker has proposed, he has conceded that income tax rates should bo rugo up, except right now we only want them to go up for millionaires. not to those making $900 million. i have said i'm going to make some cuts. what separates us is probably a

few hundred billion dollars. the idea that we would put our economy at risk because you cannot bridge that gap does not make a lot of sense. i am going to continue to talk to the speaker and the other leaders in congress. but, ultimately, they've got to do their jobs. right now their job is to make sure middle-class taxes don't go up and that we have a balanced, responsible package of deficit reduction. is there for all to see. it is a deal that should get done, but it is not going to -- it cannot be done if every side wants 100%. part of what voters were looking for is some compromise. that's what folks want. they understand they're not going to get 100% of what they want. for some reason, that message

has not yet taken on capitol hill. when you think about what we have gone through over the last couple months, a devastating hurricane, and now one of the worst tragedies in our memory, the country deserves folks to be willing to compromise on behalf of the greater good. and not to tangle themselves up in a bunch of ideological positions that don't make much sense. so i remain not only open to conversation, but i remain eager to get something done. i would like to get it done before christmas. there's been a lot of posturing on capitol hill and instead of just getting something done. we have been wasting a lot of time. it is the right thing to do. i am prepared to get it done. but they are going to have to go

ahead and make some adjustments. i will give you one other example. the speaker now is proposing what he calls plan b. he says this would raise taxes only on folks making a million dollars or more. what that means is an average of a $50,000 tax break for every millionaire. at the same time we are not providing unemployment insurance for 2 million people still looking for work. it actually means a tax increase for millions of working families across the country at the same time as folks like me would be getting a tax break. that violates the core principles that were debated during the course of this election and that the american the " determined was the wrong way to go-- that the american people determined. i hope that the speaker and his

caucus of in conjunction with other legislative leaders can find a way to make sure middle- class families don't supertaxes go on danaher first, that we make sure those things middle- class families count on like credits for college or making sure that they're getting help when it comes to raising their kids through things like the child tax credit, that that gets done, and that we have a balanced package for deficit- reduction, to exactly what i've put forward. if you look at the package i put forward, it is a balanced package by any definition. we have put forward real cuts in spending that are hard to do, in every category, and by any measure, by any traditional calculation, by the measures

republicans themselves have used in the past, this would be a as large a piece of deficit reduction as we have seen in the last 20 years. if you combine that with the increased revenue from the wealthy pay a little more, then you actually have something that would stabilize our deficit and debt for a decade, for 10 years. now, the notion that we would not do that but instead the speaker would run a play that keeps tax cuts for folks making $500,000 to $900,000 a year and gives more tax breaks to the millionaires and billionaires and raises taxes on middle-class families and has no cuts in it, which is what he said he wants, does not make

much sense. let's just think about the logic for second. they are thinking about voting for raising taxes at least on folks over $1 million, which they say they don't want to do, but they are going to reject spending cuts that they say they do want to do. that defies logic. there's no explanation for that. we have put forth a very balanced plan. it's time for us to go ahead and get it done. that's what the country needs right now, because folks have been through some wrenching times. we are still recovering from a very tough recession and what they are hoping for is a sense of stability, focus, compromise, common sense, over the next couple years. i think we can provide it, but

this is a good test for it. cheryl? >> thank you, mr. president. what's your next move? are we just waiting for the speaker to make a move? >> i'm going to recount all the leaders involved over the next couple days and find out what is holding this thing up? if the argument from republicans is we have not done enough spending cuts, that argument is not going to fly, because we have close to $1 trillion in spending cuts. when you add interest, then it is more than $1 trillion of spending cuts. if the argument is that they can not increase tax rates on folks making $700,000 or

$800,000 a year, that is not a persuasive argument to me and not to the american people. it may be that members of their caucus have not looked at exactly what we have proposed. it may be that if we provide more information where there is greater specificity or we have worked through some of their concerns, that we can get some movement. but the fact of the matter is what would violate my commitment to voters is if i ended up agreeing to a plan that put more of the burden on middle-class families and less of a burden on the wealthy in an effort to reduce our deficit. that is not something i'm going to do. what would violate my commitment to voters would be to put forth a plan that makes it harder for young people to go to college, that makes it harder for a family with a disabled child to care for that child.

there's a threshold that you reach where the balance tips, even in making compromises that are required to get something done in this town, , e whyo, arr hurting people in order to give another advantage to folks who don't need help. we had an extensive debate about this for the year. not only does the majority of american people agree with me. about half of republican voters agree with me on this. at some point there's got to beat it a recognitio -- be a recognition on the part of my republican friends that, take the deal, ok? they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other

deficit-reduction package. we will have stabilized it for 10 years. that is a significant achievement. for achievement what they should be proud of it, but they keep finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes. i don't know how much of that has to do with it is hard for them to say yes to me. but at some point they've got to take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what is best for the country. if they do that, if they're not worried about steele's winning and who's losing, that they score a point on the president, that they extract that last force concession, -- d

him to do something he really does not want to do, for the heck of it, and actually focus on what's good for the country, i think we can get something done. >> are you willing to move on an income level? >> i will not get into specific negotiations. my point is it simply, if you look at speaker boehner's proposal and look at my proposal, they are pretty close. they keep on saying somehow we have not put forward real spending cuts. july, there was a graph in the new york times today that showed. -- actually. there were a few out differences, but we are right there. on the revenue side, there's a difference in terms of them wanting to preserve tax breaks for folks between $250,000 and a million dollars, that we cannot

afford. keep in mind i am in that income category. i would love to not pay as much in taxes, but i also think it the right thing to do for us to make sure people who have less, people who are working, people who are striving and hoping for their kids, that they have opportunity. that's what we campaigned about. that's what we talked about. this is not a situation where i am willing to compromise -- where i am not willing to compromise or where i am trying to rub their faith in anything. anybody looks at this objectively will say that coming off my election i have met them at least halfway in order to get something done. and so, i noticed there were a couple headlines out there saying, "we are now in a land of political posturing"and the

usual he said she said atmosphere. but look at where we started and where they started. my proposal is right in the middle. we should able to get this done. let's get it done, because we don't have a lot of time. >> thank you, mr. president. what is your level of confidence that if you are able to reach a comprehensive deal with the speaker, that he will be able to bring its members on board to get it passed? do you still trust speaker ehner in this process? >> there's no doubt that the speaker has challenges in his caucus. i recognize that. i'm often reminded when i speak to the republican leadership that the majority of their caucus' membership comes from

districts that i lost. and so, sometimes they may not see an incentive in cooperating with me in part because they are more concerned about challenges from a tea party candidate or challenges from the right, and cooperating with me may make them vulnerable. i recognize that. but goodness, if this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective. if there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what is important. and i would like to think that members of that caucus would say

to themselves, you know what, we disagree with the president on a bunch of things, we with the other guy had won, we are going to fight him on a whole range of issues over the next four years, we think his philosophy is all screwed up, but right now what the country needs is for us to compromise, get a deficit reduction deal in place, make sure middle-class taxes don't increase, make sure we are laying the foundation for growth, give certainty to businesses large and small, not ourselves through some sort of self-inflicted crisis every six months, allow ourselves time to focus on things like preventing the tragedies in newtown from happening again, focus on issues like energy, immigration reform, all the things that will really

make a determination as to whether our country grows over the next four years, 10 years, 40 years. if you just pull back from the med -- the immediate political battles, peel off the partisan should be able to get something done. and i think the speaker would like to get that done. an environment needs to be created within not just the house republican caucus but also among the senate republicans to say the campaign is over and let's see if we can do what's right for the country, at least through the next month. and then we can we engage in all bitter battles that they will want to fight. >> they said they will try t >> they said they will try t use the